Still a Boy
by Hyper Deathray
Summary: After the death of his teacher, Shikamaru wonders about his own future. Spoilers for manga chp.330


**Still a Boy**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto Masashi does.

**Rating: **G

**Summary: **After the death of his teacher, Shikamaru wonders about his own future.

**Spoilers: **Manga spoilers up to Chapter 330

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The column of smoke reached for clouds from his breath. Idly, Shikamaru thought that it looked very pretty, the smoke like a spirit twisting towards heaven, vanishing into the air. _What a fitting symbolism_, he thought.

The funeral should be starting about this time, Shikamaru thought as he looked at the sun, which had risen above the horizon enough to say that it was morning. He wondered what Asuma might have seen in the smoke, having never asked the man about his habit. Shikamaru exhaled once more, sending another trail of smoke into the sky. He wondered if everyone would be mad at him for not showing. Well, it didn't really matter what they thought. There's more than one way to honor the dead.

Today was the day that he had dreaded for three years, since his first mission as team leader had gone horribly wrong. As he had sat outside the emergency room, impotently twiddling his fingers, he pondered the short and ephemeral lives of shinobi. He had decided then that everything would be alright if the responsibility to decide people's lives would be someone else's, but his father's words pulled him away from that illusion.

So, he resigned himself to the truth, that he was a shinobi, a chuunin, and that the vest he wore would be tight and heavy for him until the day he died. He was a little older now, three years later. His chuunin vest, with its burdensome weight of responsibility, he wore just a little more snugly. He'd learned to accept that death would always be around him, but was still shocked him that Asuma was one who he lost first. Out of all the people that Shikamaru called precious to him, Asuma was one of the only two people whom Shikamaru honestly felt that he didn't have to protect, help perhaps, but not protect.

When Asuma died, Shikamaru was shocked. And then, he grieved. And then, he suppressed that grief and accepted the death of his teacher as he had been taught. He supposed that if people walking by saw him like this, with a memento of his dead teacher between his lips, they'd pity him, and think that he was smoking the cigarette out of grief and sentimentality. They would be wrong. Good ninjas didn't grieve or grow sentimental.

Shikamaru smoked Asuma's favorite cigarettes because he wanted some insight on the man. Now, more than ever, he wished that Asuma were here, to guide him as his teacher always had before. He wanted to ask Asuma all the questions that he always held back from asking, but desperately wanted to ask now. Questions like,

_How is it that you, who was twice my age, who had lost so much in his life, how did you still live?_

Shinobi life was so full of death, of tragedies and grief all bottled up in the heart, as where shinobi were taught such things should go. Yet shinobi walked each day with their backs tall and proud, so full of life, full of dreams and hopes for today and tomorrow, this year to the next year.

_How, Asuma? How is it that people like us can still dream about tomorrow? _Shikamaru wondered. _How do people hold this poison inside of them and be so pure?_

Shikamaru had learned how to serve as a shinobi of the Leaf, but he was fifteen and desperately wanted to know how to live as a human being. _Asuma-sensei, how do I live with this?_

Shikamaru exhaled once more, hoping that just one tendril of smoke would blow into his eyes, so that he could blame it for making his eyes water, because real ninjas didn't cry. Oh yes, he had many questions for Asuma, and as hard as he tried, Shikamaru couldn't answer them himself. He was only fifteen, not thirty. He was only a chuunin, not a jounin. And regardless of his headband or his vest, he was still only a boy, not a man.

He supposed that he could go home and simply ask his father. Then, after an awkward silence, they would sit down and talk. But it wouldn't be the same. There was just one question that Shikamaru had never wanted to ask his father, one that just by existing, would make their conversation impossible for him.

_Hey old man, are you going to be okay?_

The sun had risen a little more. The funeral was definitely over by now. Time didn't stand still for anyone, and Shikamaru knew that he would need to get up soon. He still had work to do. He swore to himself and his teammates that he would finish this mission. Together they would finish what Asuma died for. But first, maybe he should go and talk to his father. He might never get the chance to ask. His father may never get the chance to answer. Maybe he should ask, before it was too late, just like with Asuma, and for the exact same reason.

Just like with Asuma.

End 


End file.
